Vintage stock certificates make great graduation, holiday gifts

All images courtesy of Scripophily.com

What do you get for the guy/gal/friend/loved one/coworker who has everything? A conversation piece, of course.

There are a lot of dealers’ websites that I visit regularly, just to see the new stuff on offer. One that I never tire of perusing is Scripophily.com, the premier seller of vintage and even recent stock certificates and bond—“business paper” that has become nearly obsolete in this age of online trading. I love the steel engravings and the fountain pen autographs on many of the older documents; I love the typography; I love the fact that they absolutely reek of history: I can almost smell the cigar smoke of Gilded Age boardrooms, almost hear the leather armchairs creak under the weight of freewheeling tycoons and steely-eyed investors, earnest entrepreneurs and cheapjack con men . . .

But that’s just me: lots of people buy a stock certificate for genealogical reasons—their ancestors may have owned or worked for the company—as an expression of a brand preference, or because it connects with another collect passion: gun collectors, for example, would probably love old shares in firearm companies to hang in their man caves; for movie buffs, there are certificates for motion picture studios and film labs old and new; and model railroaders will get a blast from shares in the Lionel Corporation, not to mention any of a slew of historic lines. Some folks even see offbeat humor in hanging or giving a certificate for a notorious business or one touched by scandal: like Worldcom or even Martha Stewart Living.

Scripophily.com’s president, former Northwest resident Bob Kerstein, a CPA since 1978, has been chief financial officer of companies like McCaw Cellular Corporation (now AT&T Wireless), Falcon Cable TV and American Mobile Satellite Corporation, director of financial reporting at Warner Brothers, and chief information officer at Orca Bay Sports and Entertainment, owners of the Vancouver Canucks and the Vancouver Grizzlies (before the latter went to Memphis), so he knows his onions about big business. In fact, Kerstein doesn’t just sell old stock and bond certificates but autographs, antique documents, early currency, and other interesting items; he also provides stock research services, so if you’re up in the attic and come across a bunch of shares in the bottom of Granny’s old trunk, Bob can tell you if they’re still redeemable.

Here’s a quick selection in a pretty wide price range that I pulled from the Scripophily.com website:

For the Civil War collector: a $1,000 bond from 1865 for the payment of bounties to volunteers from New York State ($149.95); an 1865 check signed by Medal of Honor winner John Hartranft ($175); an 1861 Confederate bond for $100 issued in Montgomery, Alabama, before the capital of the Confederacy was moved to Richmond, Virginia ($129.95).

For the transportation collector: an unissued 1950s certificate for the Cessna Aircraft Company ($495); a 50-by-40-inch UK/Canadian enlistment poster from 1915 entreating men to “REMEMBER THE LUSITANIA!” after the ship was sunk by a U-boat ($695); one hundred shares in the Chicago Terminal Transfer Railroad Company, issued to robber baron E. H. Harriman and signed by him.

For the gearhead: a 1924 certificate for ten shares in theDuesenberg Automobile & Motors Co.($395); various Packard Motor Car Company certificates dating from the 1920s to the 1950s ($24.95 to $395); twenty shares in the Yellow Cab Company of Baltimore from 1915 ($139.95).

For the Northwest collector: a 1907 $500 gold bond certificate for the Mount Hood Railroad Company, signed by trustee Matthew S. Browning of the Browning Arms Company and with a great steam locomotive/horse-drawn wagon vignette ($139.95); an 1890 certificate for 10 shares in the Grays Harbor Company (to finance the building of roads and the laying of rails, including the cost of bridges over the Wishkah and Hoquiam rivers), hand signed by the company’s president and secretary, and with a great vignette of a steamship ($395); a 1910 certificate for 20 shares in the Seattle–Tacoma Short Line with a great Mount Rainier vignette and also signed by the company’s president and secretary ($69.95).

For kids of all ages: a single share in DreamWorks Animation SKG from 2009 with Shrek’s face on it($79.95); a rare specimen gold bond certificate for $500 from the Hershey Chocolate Corporation dated 1920 ($395); an unissued circa-1960 specimen certificate for Wurlitzer Company, maker of the famous jukeboxes ($99.95); a bank check issued by Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Pawnee Bill’s Great Far East show, dated 1912 and signed by Gordon W. Lillie (“Pawnee Bill”) himself ($395).

Scripophily.com offers custom framing, too, for the perfect presentation. Browse the inventory at www.Scripophily.com.

A couple of months ago, I received an interesting letter, apparently mass-mailed to collectibles dealers, from a gentleman whose father is a paralyzed U.S. Army veteran suffering from PTSD. The father had collected various things in his youth—“cards, stamps, games, etc.”—all of which had been destroyed by flooding, and the son hoped to put a new collection together for his dad. The son concluded the letter asking for “information and/or samples.”

This piqued my interest for two reasons. One, I know the rewards of collecting—as most readers of this blog also do—and can well imagine it providing therapeutic value for someone coping with anxiety (with the caveat that competitive collecting, such as bidding at auction, can be another source of stress).

The second thing that interested me was that the son seemed not have ever collected anything himself: Why else would he have mailed a bunch of collectibles dealers to ask for information? It seemed like a noble but misguided effort to help his father by “casting too wide a net,” so to speak.

Naturally, I was eager to offer encouragement and advice. Here’s my reply:

Dear Mr. ———

Please convey my gratitude to your father for his service and tremendous sacrifices for our country.

Your letter did not sound as if you have ever collected anything yourself, so I want to urge you: First off, please do not build a collection for your father. Instead, ask him what he wants to collect and then offer him any help he needs to create his own collection.

Collecting is a very personal pursuit, and people’s interests change: I collected coins when I was a kid—often by going through my father’s pocket change—and I learned a lot about coins back then, when you could still sometimes find buffalo nickels and Mercury dimes. My father was born in 1906: HIS father’s pocket change might have had coins from the Civil War era! Hard to imagine.

The point is, I don’t collect coins now—or stamps or baseball cards, which I also collected—as my interests have changed. So whatever your dad collected when he was a kid may not have the same meaning to him now.

Second, BUILDING a collection is at least half the fun of HAVING the collection. If you just buy a collection and give it to your father, it won’t be as much fun as building it himself. So let your father do the collecting!

So you really need to talk with your dad and see what really interests him!

Third, unless you have a lot of money, don’t collect what everyone else is trying to collect. When I used to collect rare books when I was in my 20s, and didn’t have much money, someone told me: Don’t plan to collect signed Ernest Hemingway first editions, because you will never have much of a collection. In fact, depending on what your dad decides to collect, you may not need to spend much money at all! I used to collect my favorite ballplayers’ autographs just by writing them letters and asking for their autographs. So it cost the price of a postage stamp, some paper and some envelopes!

Fourth, and this is a big one: Ask other people who collect the same type of thing how to go about it and who to buy from. Don’t buy ANYTHING until you research it, as there are a lot of people who will overcharge you or sell you fake stuff, especially on eBay.

Anyway, I hope this helps. Once your dad decides what he wants to collect, let me know and maybe I can help with more specific information.

So far, no response, but I wonder if readers have anything else to add . . . ?

The following was originally posted online in 2013 in slightly different form.

Collecting is about restraint, not the lack of it. If you buy selectively, you’re a collector; if you buy reflexively or compulsively, you’re a hoarder. In other words:

Don’t amass “stuff.” Collect something that is meaningful to you. Don’t get locked into a habit. True collecting is much more than just acquisitiveness; it’s about knowing all you can about your subject and, even better, finding out something new that other collectors may not know.

Choose your collecting area carefully. Specialize as much as possible and stick to those parameters. It’s smarter and certainly more cost-effective to limit your spending and then broaden your field than to spend widely and then narrow your focus.

Be realistic. If you flip burgers at McDonald’s for minimum wage, don’t plan to collect signed Hemingway first editions anytime soon. Better to choose a more contemporary author or artist or musician you really love whose associated memorabilia is within your price range. Which is to say:

Stay within your budget. Part of the fun of collecting is getting great stuff at great prices. Sure, if you have deep pockets, you can buy whatever you want by just throwing money at it—but I question how rewarding that could possibly be, especially as you’re bound to overpay more often than not.

Some of my favorite pieces are the ones that cost the least. This usually means spreading the word about what I’m looking for, watching a lot of online auctions and dealer websites, exercising patience, and otherwise persevering. It also involves plenty of research. When you finally nab what you’ve been searching for, that’s when you’ll feel the most gratification.

Quality is more important than quantity. Unless something is unique, one-of-a-kind, or so rare that you never expect to see another, it’s bound to come on the market again—sooner than you think, in better condition, and/or at a better price. Before buying or bidding on something, ask yourself: Do I really need this? If your honest answer is no, pass on it.

You can’t have everything. Collecting is a journey that never ends. Unless you collect a very limited series of something—rookie cards for the 1969 Mets, for example, or Franklin Mint spoons for the state of Hawaii—you’ll never acquire every worthwhile collectible in your area of interest . . . so don’t try to buy everything. Again, be selective.

When you lose an item, let it go. You may mistype a last-minute bid and not have enough time to correct it; or sleep through an early morning auction; or mistake the date or time an auction was due to end; or encounter a computer glitch; or discover that an item was withdrawn from an auction because the consignor decided to sell it directly to another bidder . . . All these things have happened to me. Most often I’m simply outbid. It used to ruin my whole day—even my whole week.

Then I learned to take a deep breath and just get over it. If you want to get spiritual about it, just accept that everything happens for a reason. Maybe it means that you’ll get something even better before long: As Alexander Graham Bell said, “When one door closes, another door opens . . .” Or consider it payback for the great stuff you were lucky enough to get in the past. The important thing is not to agonize over a loss and, if possible, to learn something from it.